Quick, somebody check on Alan Wolfe, the super-respected, 73-year-old sociologist and political scientist at Boston College. Call him up on his Jitterbug phone and make sure he hasn't had a stroke or something.

"Libertarianism has a complicated history, and it is by and large a sordid one," charges Wolfe. It is "a secular substitute for religion, complete with its own conception of the city of God, a utopia of pure laissez-faire and the city of man, a place where envy and short-sightedness hinder creative geniuses from carrying out their visions."

I'd call him the Hitler of Hyperbole, but that seems, I don't know, a tad over the top. Sort of like equating a live-and-let-live philosophy such as libertarianism to Stalinism. Which I confess it totally is. Except for the gulags, the mass murders, the forced relocations, the belief in statism, a demonstrably insane economic policy—I'm probably forgetting one or two other points of similarity.

Predictably, Wolfe disinters the corpse of Ayn Rand and insists not only was the Atlas Shrugged author "an authoritarian at heart" but that she remains the beating heart of an intellectual, philosophical, and cultural movement that includes a fistful of Nobel Prize winners (Friedman, Buchanan, Smith, Hayek, Vargas Llosa, etc.); thinkers such as Robert Nozick and Camille Paglia; businessmen such as Whole Foods' John Mackey, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Overstock's Patrick Byrne; and creative types ranging from Rose Wilder Lane to the creators of South Park to Vince Vaughn. Sound the alarum, folks! Team America: World Police and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story are running on Comedy Central again!

Ultimately, it's the specter of Rand Paul, son of Ron (who "adhered to such radical positions as abolishing the Federal Reserve"!), that's making Wolfe tear through his Depends like Stalin through his former revolutionary comrades in the late '30s.

Libertarianism now has a certain freshness because it seems to cross the otherwise impregnable line between right and left. Sharply reducing the role of government in American life, libertarianism's primary objective, appeals to conservatives because it offers an end to Obamacare, Social Security and other programs that transfer public money to the less well-off. Yet it also attracts liberal voters who ardently oppose invasions of privacy and bloated defense spending.

Paul's appeal doesn't stop there, however. He understands that the GOP base is getting older and whiter — which bodes badly for the party's future. He is reaching out to minorities. By attacking his party's attempts to restrict the vote, Paul could attract many African-American and Latino voters. He has also appealed to younger voters by calling for less restrictive drug laws, for example, and speaking at college campuses, where older Republicans have been loathe to appear.

Let's be clear: Libertarianism doesn't seem to cross lines between the right and left in contemporary America. It ignores them with impunity, which is one of the reasons why libertarians can embrace, say, transgenders in a way that drives the right insane while also standing up for the rights of Indiana pizza shop owners not to cater a hypothetical gay wedding reception (which drives the left batty). Looking over the wreckage of these first 15 years of the 21st century, where the federal government was run first by awful conservative Republicans and then by equally awful liberal Democrats, only a true believer in ideological stasis like Wolfe could be mumbling a variation on "Keep Calm and Carry On." As Matt Welch and I argued in The Declaration of Independents, we live in a world of dizzying possibilities and innovation where people are gaining more and more ability to pursue their dreams as they define them. The last redoubts of failure and sclerosis—education, health care, and retirement—are those most under the control of government. Add to that the erection of warfare-surveillance state that is heartily funded and supported by the two major parties and, well, nobody should be surprised that libertarianism is ascendant, especially among younger Americans. It offers a hopeful, inclusive, idealistic alternative to the world of ashes in which they have been raised.

If you're wondering where Wolfe ends up in his piece, he concludes in an intellectual funnel cloud that unlike liberalism and conservatism, libertarianism is a rigid ideology that cannot compromise in any way, shape, or form. Where Republicans and Democrats will (thankfully) agree to increase spending on both social welfare and defense, a truly principled libertarian wouldn't and hence would fail. Which is good, because libertarianism is bad. And Rand Paul isn't really libertarian, so he won't get the nomination anyway. Because nobody really likes libertarianism, which is why it's dangerous that it seems to be getting so popular, know what I mean? Then there's this:

The good news is that if Paul were to win the Republican nomination, libertarianism's unfitness for the modern world would be revealed for all to see. The bad news is that the poison of its extremism would enter into the body politic, perhaps never to be fully ejected.

Reading this sort of piece makes me feel sad for the centrist-liberal public intellectual, who must be experiencing that sinking feeling that happens when your entire life's work and political philosophy comes a cropper not because they weren't tried but precisely they were tried again and again and again. After decades of expounding the need for, among other things, a literal Return to Greatness in the guise of national campaigns to advance his particular predilections when it comes to politics and culture, Wolfe is now forced to live in a historical moment when, gag, libertarians doth bestride the narrow world like pint-sized Colossi, arguing that America should invade fewer countries, lock up fewer non-violent criminals, and give fewer tax dollars to billion-dollar corporations and super-wealthy individuals via government handouts. The horror.

Among the many ways Wolfe is wrong: He errs in thinking that libertarianism is a set of distinct policy proposals, all of which must be adhered to in all instances. As I'm fond of saying, libertarian is best understood as an adjective, an attitude, a temperament. Do you agree that individuals should be given more choices when it comes to making decisions about where to live, how to work, whom to love, what to eat? All things being equal, do you trust not just yourself but your neighbors and especially people you don't even know to come to voluntary arrangements based in respect and mutual benefits?

Like Seinfeld's George Costanza convinced of his jerk-store comeback, Wolfe drops what he doubtless thinks is a rhetorical A-bomb part way through his wretched essay: "Truly principled libertarians believe that government should refrain from telling women what to do with their bodies, but should there be no regulation of medical procedures?"

Well, no. Even in the absence of, say, a government-run Food and Drug Administration or medical-procedure board, there would be all sorts of certifying agencies, insurance companies, reputational proxies, grading services, and more to give consumers all sorts of information about the efficacy and safety of whatever you could dream up.

That world is, of course, already growing up all around us, on everything from Amazon to Uber. If Wolfe could only take a deep breath or two, he might realize that libertarianism isn't the Stalinism-lite system he's cracked it up to be. To the contrary, it's profoundly liberating and humane set of beliefs that are flourishing precisely because the old ways of maintaining control and power are fading like the worst excesses of the old Soviet Union.

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I was once diagnosed with major depression on the grounds that I exhibitted no depressive symptoms whatever. The psychotherapist argued that since one would be expected to be somewhat depressed in the conditions I faced that the total absence of depressive symptoms then demonstrated the presence of severe, clinical depression. Apparently a symptomless disorder which in no wise impacts one’s life, except perhaps if we view the absence of depressive symptoms as a symptom, in which case, it would seem that symptomless depression actually renders one more able to manhandle problems in life. And yet treatment was recommended to alleviate this severe disorder of the soul. Then there was the time I got diagnosed with narcissicistic personality disorder because I drew a tiny clock. (I had practical reasons for getting these of-n?-face-utility assessments.)

One of the fundamental principles of diagnosing mental disorders is that the symptoms must INTERFERE with a person’s daily living or quality of life.

If you are depressed and can barely get out bed and you can’t manage to accomplish even routine daily tasks, that’s a problem, not simply the fact that you feel sad for no real reason.

They even apply that to things like delusions or hallucinations. If I believe aliens are talking to me and, as a result, I am unable to hold down a job, practice basic hygiene, or manage real world relationships — then I’m crazy. If I can do all those things fine but I still vividly imagine talking with E.T. — I’m just super imaginative and creative and will produce novels or screenplays. Your therapist sounds incompetent.

I caught that, too. No idea that the problem libertarians have is where that “public money” comes from. Its just “public money”, and thats it. Taxes, government debt, and money printing don’t enter the picture, because it’s just “public money”.

I swear to god, these people are viewing the collapse and failure of all their own policies and deeply held beliefs and are projecting that anger and disappointment on a new target (what a surprise!), and have decided that libertarianism is their new projection boogeyman.

It’s the only thing that makes sense. More and more rants about stuff that sounds a lot more like what these people actually act like is instead being ascribed to libertarians? Got it.

“I swear to god, these people are viewing the collapse and failure of all their own policies and deeply held beliefs and are projecting that anger and disappointment on a new target (what a surprise!), and have decided that libertarianism is their new projection boogeyman.”

I would expect nothing less than a persecution complex, from a Koch brothers stooge.. All your hoarding and wrecking has destroyed this almost great nation.

Yeah ever since we started following libertarian policies by setting up a police state, invading random countries, socializing the airline security workers and ratcheting spending to the moon things have really fallen apart. I mean our current governing structure looks just like Galt’s gulch.

Its right there on page 842 “Dagney Taggert unsheathed her sword speaking in a thunderous voice. I demand you regulate the the dimensions of a grilled cheese sandwich! The children cannot wait and if you won’t act I will!”

This smoking turd only reinforces the dynamic I’ve time and time again: Even the smartest people become utter morons when it comes to politics.

In this case, it’s spectacularly gobsmacking just how moronic he is and how wrong he is about nearly everything in his piece. It’s almost like he was doing something fantastically stupid, like blaming everything horrible that his side has done on someone else.

It’s because libertarianism is the new rebel cause for the youngsters. Both Red & Blue hate it like their parents hated Elvis. They also know it is unstoppable, you can’t stop an idea, but they try their best to subvert it.

If you’re looking around for the singular, flagship achievement of libertarianism, its high-water mark, etc., I would have to say it is the founding of the United States.

Libertarianism has a complicated history, and it is by and large a sordid one,

Geez, I mean, sure the US has had its moments, but I wouldn’t say that relative to its peers, its history has been a sordid one. And those episodes where it has not exactly been exemplary are mostly episodes where it was abandoning its libertarian roots.

It is “a secular substitute for religion, complete with its own conception of the city of God,

Err, no. A libertarian society is one where you are free to have a religion or not. This sounds a lot more like a description of Marxism than libertarianism.

a utopia of pure laissez-faire and the city of man,

Libertarians are not utopians. Again, this is a much better description of Marxism.

a place where envy and short-sightedness hinder creative geniuses from carrying out their visions.

Wait, he’s saying that the libertarian utopia is one where creative geniuses are hindered by envy and shortsightedness? I thought it was just the opposite, a place where creative geniuses could pursue their vision without being hindered?

Also, it’s not only “creative geniuses” who get to pursue their visions unhindered. It’s basically everyone. Everyone is supposed to have the same right to pursue their interests within a framework where everyone has equal mutually compatible and consistent rights. Anyone should be allowed to innovate and employ themselves in whatever creative way they want. Some will be brilliantly sucessful, some will not. But everyone should have the right to pursue their goals and not be subject to arbitrary interference.

I think the key issue is that we don’t think that “creative geniuses” have any sort of innate duty to society. There are no positive obligations, only negative ones – the obligation to respect other people’s persons and property and freedom of action. There’s no moral obligation to obey whatever arbitrary restrictions that society places on your vision. There’s no moral obligation to spend your life serving others instead of pursuing your dreams. That’s what sticks in their craw – the horrible, horrible idea of an individual unencumbered by the chains of social obligation.

Like Bob Dylan, the ex-folkie sellout. Or the pointless obsession of what such-and-such could have done if he didn’t burn out or do too many drugs. Who cares? They didn’t do it. There’s no shortage of talent in the world, but there’s often a shortage of opportunity when walls are built to exclude the talented and able. OMG! But you’re not saying there shouldn’t be regulation! Nooooo!!!!

I get in arguments with National Socialists all the time over the fact that NatSoc asks me to give of myself for the good of society. I ask, “Why? What do I owe society? It never did anything for me.” They reply, “What have you done for society? Why does society owe you anything?”

It also seems like he might be confusing libertarianism with objectivism a bit. Libertarianism is just a simple set of principles, while objectivism tells you how you should live your life. Big difference.

Libertarians (as I understand them) don’t favor laissez-faire because it leads to a utopia. They favor it because it is the right thing to do and leads to better outcomes in most historical examples you can find. One of the best things about libertarians is that unlike a lot of political philosophies, they don’t, for the most part, think that theirs will lead to a perfect society.

They don’t know why the 2nd amendment exists. Disregarding all of history, they truly believe that a band of self-interested folk could never fight off the might of a governmental professional fighting force.

Clueless pundits like this always confuse Libertarianism with Anarchism or Objectivism. They then go on to show why the world will collapse into dystopian chaos, based upon a false premise of what libertarianism is.

And libertarianism is nigh unto itself as a political philosophy not resting upon a fundamental premise that man is perfectable. Everything else I can think of at some point demands an assumption of perfectability (or even perfection) of human interaction. Only libertarianism provides something for the here and now that is based on how people really are, not as some ideal someone imagines they might be able to become someday. It’s strange, then, how it’s so often criticised as being na?ve and impractical and what not by adherents of the utopian, eschatological fantasy orientations.

“”a secular substitute for religion, complete with its own conception of the city of God”

If there is a secular religion with it’s own conception of the City of God, it’s Marxism. I don’t think libertarianism claims that it’s end state is literally going to be a “worker’s paradise”.

In fact, few libertarians claim that their ideal state would be any sort of paradise. Optimal distributions of resources don’t make them any less scarce. There wouldn’t be a chicken in every pot or free universal healthcare. There would merely be the opportunity to pursue your own interests without unjust hindrances. A libertarian society is a community of mutual respect for one-another’s equality and independence and right to self-determination, it’s not a promise than manna will fall from heaven and everyone will hold hands and love eachother, unlike many other political philosophies i could mention.

Libertarians tend to appreciate self organization and understand that we don’t know what the optimal arrangement of society will be in the future. Most other political philosophies seem to see the world as static and controllable. I think that might be the thing that people really don’t get. The human world is amazing and dynamic and constantly surprising. It is just idiotic to think you can make a top down plan for that which will work out.

That’s the thing the aggravates me about people who whine that some-group-or-other either has or will eventually get “all the wealth”, as if it was some pile of coins that people are pulling coins from, and once it’s gone, there’s no more. Never mind that the actuality is that wealth can be freely created pretty much without limit.

But, you forget, we have come to live in an age where “justice” is no longer self-evident and needs to be painstakingly explained to anyone under the age of the thirty (and over the age of ten). It’s got to the point where even when the idea seems to get across, the opposition treats it as though justice were some fantastic impossibility unworthy of consideration by serious adults, whereas fairness and “social justice” (which is to say, whatever else it may be, not justice) all sorts of other bizarre utopian schemes are taken up by these same bozoes in their guise of the serious, practical ones.

Ya know, the more of the excerpts I read, the more I think this is a big prank, that he wrote a scathing indictment of Marxism, and then search-and-replaced Marxism with libertarianism. Tell me this doesn’t make more sense:

The good news is that if Paul Bernie Sanders were to win the Republican Democrat nomination, libertarianism’s Marxism’s unfitness for the modern world would be revealed for all to see. The bad news is that the poison of its extremism would enter into the body politic, perhaps never to be fully ejected.

Yes it does, although I would have thought the complete failure of Marxism to ever actually work, the billions dead, and the complete economic basket cases that every nation that tried it turned into would have been enough to demonstrate its unfitness to the modern world, but apparently not.

Reminds me of a gal I knew who wrote religious children’s stories. She’d write a story, designed to teach a lesson from a particular religion. She’d sell it to a publication bent toward that religion, and then she’d change some of the jargon to make it fit a different religion, and sell it again, and so on, till she ran out of ways she could chaunge it coherently with find and replace.

The thing is, Sociology is a fake science. It is built on the idea that masses of people act like ants, which is the core of the collectivism that became Communism. Oh, it could be a real discipline (though probably not a Science), analyzing the social currents and how they interact (which is, I suppose, a subset of History), but any real chance of that has to wait on several generations of Statist idiots to retire and/or die. I’m not holding my breath.

But to a Sociologist, the idea that The Masses should be allowed to do what they damn well please without the guidance of their Betters is Anathema, the Sin of Witchcraft. Absolutely terrifying. Why, if it caught on, people might question the right of Sociologists to occupy cushy sinecures in Academia. They might have to start WORKING for a living. They might have to deal in TRADE!

I don’t embrace Libertarianism without demure. But “Stalinist”? Really? This guy is completely panicked. He’s raving. Like a man afraid that his whole personal is going to be exposed as a fraud?…

Yeah, see, Stalin didn’t want to use force, right? I mean he was a nice guy, but all those guys around him, they did that stuff, so it’s just like he was for freedom and shit, see? And that’s just like, uh, those libertarian guys, they want to do shit like that, see? Right? Right?

Only in academia and government (especially government public education) can one be so absolutely incorrect about everything and still remain employed and even “well respected” what amazes me is that this idiot is at Boston College which I always thought was an excellent university – just goes to show that no academic institution is immune to this kind of blinding stupidity.

The key to being “well respected” in academia and government is writing shit like this that confirms the statist’s preconceived biases about what horrible people libertarians are. As long as you continue to tow the party line, you can always count on having a nice, cushy job in academia or government, and that “the right people” will continue to respect you.

Nowhere in here did he mention anything authoritarian at all about libertarianism ideas — just some projection of such an ethos onto Ayn Rand and then projecting SJW fanaticism onto the general libertarian straw man that he took all of 5 minutes to construct.

Also, Nick should give Hinkle some pointers on actually analyzing things in a thoughtful manner.

Between Kevin Drum and this joker, I don’t know whose description of libertarianism is worse.

I’ve asked this and I’ve seen others ask it here, but are there any articles in places like Mother Jones or Reuters that offer an intellectually honest critique of libertarianism? Because I’ve yet to see one yet.

Twenty-five years ago I had an American intellectual history professor who at least gave the basics on what libertarianism is about on the way to John Rawls and the usual stuff. He didn’t seem to like libertarianism much, but he at least let his students in on what it is to a certain degree. That seems so quaint now.

There was a leftard douchenozzle in my high school who taught Social Studies. The kind of asshole who poisoned kids’ minds by pretending to be their friend, smoking dope with a few of them, that kind of thing.

He paraphrased the LP platform from the Clark campaign, leaving out all explanation of our reasons for the policies we advocated, and handed it out to his class saying “this is the Libertarian platform, it should be good for a laugh”.

That’s when I realized that some government school employees are political operatives.

These people who attack libertarian philosophy are, when it comes down to it, stupid. I’ve given them the benefit of the doubt for far too long.

They seem unable to grasp the concept of spontaneous order in markets.

They seem unable to distinguish between positive and negative rights.

They seem unable to determine right and wrong from first principles.

They seem unable to distinguish between the initiation of aggression and the defense against.

Most importantly they can’t look at world and individual issues and apply these concepts in a meaningful manner.

I mean just look at most journalists today. They can’t write a proper argumentative piece. Unsupported assertions, ad hominem, appeals to authority, etc. Their brains developed up to their teenage years and peaked. And just like teenagers they lash out violently when their world view is shown to be incorrect.

No, our problem is that we understand that these simplistic presumptions about how human societies work and deontological proclamations are batshit stupid and don’t apply to anything resembling reality.

Spontaneous order in markets… is fine. But the stretch is when you imply that whatever the market does is good, i.e., not to be corrected. Libertarians by necessity don’t pay attention to historical evidence, and even in theory their requirement of an unadulterated market is obviously ludicrous. Your approach to the magic of markets resembles religion. A lot.

Even if there is a meaningful distinction between positive and negative rights (and there’s not), you have to prove the case why we aren’t allowed positive ones when modern society has done so well for freedom by implementing them. And explain why law enforcement and property rights don’t constitute positive rights.

First principles: you haven’t figured those out. No philosophy has. Society is what we make of it, and your principles are not entitled to self-justify; like everyone else you are required to explain why your policies are good for people, not how perfectly they accord with axioms somebody made up.

The distinction between initiatory and reactionary force has been well understood in millenia of law. It’s just that libertarians use it as an unconvincing means of justifying why it’s OK to tax me to pay for what they want, but not OK to tax them to pay for what I want.

No, our problem is that we understand that these simplistic presumptions about how human societies work and deontological proclamations are batshit stupid and don’t apply to anything resembling reality.

You mean wanting to cocoon people from the vicissitudes of life is not being simplistic?

But the stretch is when you imply that whatever the market does is good, i.e., not to be corrected.

Indeed, that’s a stretch, because it is not even the argument. Markets are driven by people’s choices. That doesn’t mean people are perfect or that people don’t make mistakes. YOUR assumption ?that people are too stoopid to make good choices, from whence comes your anti-market argument? IS simplistic, moronic and downright pedantic.

You mean wanting to cocoon people from the vicissitudes of life is not being simplistic?

I don’t know how to make people like you think beyond all-or-nothing terms. It may not be possible, but I’d like to think it is. I suggest reading lots of books that don’t confirm what you already believe. I don’t want to cocoon people, I just think human beings have figured out impressive means of reducing risk for people, and while those means should always be measured against any potential loss in individual liberty, going to either extreme is, well, extremist.

Your policy does not “expand liberty”. And you know it. That’s what I mean by trying to debate someone who is objectively dishonest. Do you think throwing in “liberty” now and then makes your argument better?Admit it. You USE the word liberty as a “bait-and-switch”. Because you think in the Libertarian Universe, there will be poor souls left behind. And you don’t think leaving people behind is FAIR. It is not liberty you desire. It is fairness.

It’s not even fairness. Fairness would be to leave everyone alone to succeed or fail on their own merits. It is equality he wants. He wants everyone to be equal. Not have equal rights, mind you, but equal outcomes. And he’s willing to drag the successful down to the level of the lowest amongst us to achieve that goal.

Fairness is essential to liberty. And I don’t know why anyone would be against fairness. Again, libertarians turn being assholes into being virtuous. It’s very very strange.

I think liberty should mean what it does. If ten people have all the wealth, they are certainly free. Everyone else however is only potentially free, with the assumption that by some means that don’t exist in nature they can theoretically become number 11.

I’m for more centrally administered benefits for all humans. See, I actually favor policies that allow capitalism to work in its own sphere, creative destruction and all. But the only way we can do that while still ensuring that citizens of the wealthiest society on earth do not want for basic needs is to socialize access to those basic needs. Let Uber operate in a competitive market, with respect to both customers and employees. When people don’t have to rely on an Uber job to meet basic needs, we need not require intrusive regulations to ensure the company Uber meets the requirements that trigger employer-focused benefits. Similarly let’s unburden businesses with providing healthcare access and free them to do what they are set up to do; let’s provide nationalized healthcare.

That’s the thing the aggravates me about people who whine that some-group-or-other either has or will eventually get “all the wealth”, as if it was some pile of coins that people are pulling coins from, and once it’s gone, there’s no more. Never mind that the actuality is that wealth can be freely created pretty much without limit

For Tony, freedom means to be “free from want.” It is an obvious equivocation but that is the gist of most of his tirades and criticisms of libertarianism. That is why he argues with a straight face that liberty is an actual IMPOSITION on people.

Worse than that, he doesn’t believe in self ownership. Which is, really, all that libertarianism is. It’s just that self ownership has a multitude of implications and most people can’t connect the dots. If you are not a libertarian (or voluntaryest or whatever you want to call it) you necessarily believe that some people have the right to coerce other people and to inflict violence on them and to take what they have. However these people couch it in nice sounding language, it all comes down to the belief that some people have a legitimate right to aggress against others.

You dum-dum, libertarianism seeks to minimize one faction imposing its policies on another. And no, before you answer, one party resisting another’s aggression isn’t the same as initiating aggression, as you would have it.

Democracy is useful as a tool that people can use within a context of a larger legal framework whose sole purpose is to protect people’s rights. If we get to vote on who protects our rights the assumption is we will pick people who do it well. Most people don’t have a problem with democracy used that way. We do have a problem with it being use as a tool to give 50.1% of the population whatever the hell they want or rather what they can be manipulated into wanting usually through propagandizing fear.

I really believe progressives latched on to the whole democracy thing because if they could convince people that government should do whatever the people want then they could also deceive them into following various forms of progressive idiocy and then retort with cuz democracy anytime anyone complained.

Democracy gave us Nazi’s, Bush, Obama, and FDR. It ain’t all that great.

Democracy has given us many bad things. So, for the millionth time, please explain what alternative you propose; what or who implements the policies that are superior to what democracy delivers? The guys above you seem to think it all happens by magic. I crave to be enlightened on this issue.

I just did propose something. Democracy is a legitimate element in a system it should not be “the system”. Your question is like giving me a bowl of flour, telling me its a cake and then asking “Well how would you propose making a cake?”

The problem is not that democracy should not be an element in our system. The problem is it should not be the system in its entirety. Democracy is fine as a way to help people select “employees” which is what politicians are. It is not legitimate to use as a weapon against fellow citizens who are not doing exactly what you want them to do. Keep democracy to choose politicians whose job it is to protect us from those who would do us harm. To use it for anything else is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding on dinner which is what democracy always turns into when stretched any further.

How about a Constitutional Republic, with the government being granted a small list of specific powers, and with any powers not explicitly granted to the Federal government being reserved for the States or the People? How’s that for an alternative to an all powerful central government that crushes freedom while enabling cronyism and state sponsored violence

“YOUR assumption ?that people are too stoopid to make good choices, from whence comes your anti-market argument? IS simplistic, moronic and downright pedantic.”

And, at the same time, that some people are possessed of perfect knowledge and total purity of intention, and that they somehow also happen to be those in power. It reminds me of Fromm’s many analyses of Nazism, which he held to be an orientation really devoid of any real political content, other than submission to the powerful. He gave abundant examples demonstrating the Nazi’s lack of commitment to a consistent policy, so long as the leadership continued to keep up a fa?ade of authority. The infallibility of that leadership seemed to proceed forth directly from its violent overbearance of the opposition. Might makes right is somehow more sensible and mature to these people than any childish principles.

To take it another way. He thinks people are too stupid to handle the nuances of their own life but so brilliant that they can pick which sociopath politician should handle the nuances of other people’s lives. If people are really as stupid as he thinks then to believe in democracy is an exercise on cognitive dissonance.

I’m an Anarcho-Capitalist so I don’t believe in law enforcement. As for property rights I suggest you head over to r/Anarchism and gargle their cool-aid. Those fools are ever attempting to create a system wherein there are no future disputes. Foolish stupidity.

– First principles: you haven’t figured those out. No philosophy has.

I was referring to applying logic to first principles. But I wouldn’t expect you to grasp that concept.

– It’s just that libertarians use it as an unconvincing means of justifying why it’s OK to tax me to pay for what they want, but not OK to tax them to pay for what I want.

Then you get points for not adopting the fatal contradiction that property-loving libertarians do. But here let us be instructed on the relationship between purism and radicalism. No law enforcement is nonsense; someone’s going to decide to enforce laws that benefit himself, without the benefits of checks and balances in a modern democracy, so to truly think anarchism can work you have to do exactly what the Wolfe said: require that all people behave in a specific and consistent way despite whatever incentives of desperation or greed may exist to tempt them. It is belief in magic.

But government intervention, boy, now *that* is magic. I mean, look at all the wonderful ways our massive, bloated government has made things better! Endless war, endless deficits/debt, the drug war, spying on everyone…

And the war on poverty! Why, who can forget Poverty signing surrender papers on the USS Missouri? Magic!

And yet he agonises over the good, despite rejecting idealism and first principles and objective truth. So, in the end all it can ever mean when he talks about the good or the preferable is “what Tony feels like at this moment, arbitrarily, and without rational basis”.

Markets are people interacting how they want. To interfere is to deny people can interact without approval (from who), and to suppose there is a higher authority to govern their interaction. You must not just establish that you think that people must be forced to interact a certain way, but there are somewhere humans who rise above the others who are fit to make such decisions. There’s plenty of history to show this isn’t true, but go ahead and make your case.

People have been able to distinguish positive rights for hundreds of years. Are you asserting that your special level of retardation means there is no difference. That’s like saying since I can’t understand how a phone works it can’t possibly exist. It’s your problem you are too stupid, nobody else’s.

“Society is what we make of it” implies someone above society should shape it. Like markets, you need to prove these people exist. I could make society slaves, without some guiding principles the revelation that society can be forced to act a certain way is not an argument that they should be.

If you endorse leaving markets alone then you are claiming that doing such maximizes human well-being, even if you’re defining human well-being as the radically narrow, quasi-religious adherence to certain authoritative principles. How many get to die for your cause before we start approaching things with a more complex idea of what human well-being means?

I neither believe in a meaningful distinction between positive and negative rights nor do I think any such distinction implies a necessary policy set. Many of the liberties I have on a deserted island are ones I’d gladly exchange for the ones I gain with a functioning governed civilization. I would even sacrifice some I cherish if it means we maintain a form of society in which people are free to decide for themselves how society should run. What that means when there are more than one person in the picture, of course, is voting. Unless you want to be the first to describe a better system for groups of people deciding things that affect them collectively.

There is no choice between being governed and being government-free. Government will always exist; pray that it is contains checks and balances sufficient to make it function well and at the behest of the governed.

There is an obvious distinction between between positive and negative rights. If people couldn’t see that distinction, we wouldn’t have different words “positive” and “negative” for them.

Positive rights require specific actions on the part of other people to fulfill. Negative rights require inaction. If you have the right to a house, somebody else has to provide the house. To have the right to free speech, or to keep a piece of property, all they have to do is refrain from taking it or stopping you. They don’t have to buy you a printing press.

If people couldn’t see that distinction, we wouldn’t have different words “positive” and “negative” for them.

“Action” and “inaction” are different words and antonyms. But inaction is, also, action. You only “inact” relative to a defined action. Decline to tax a billionaire to pay to repair a bridge, you have acted, via inaction–and chosen–to let a bridge crumble.

This is child’s play when it comes to most libertarians’ emphasis, property rights–obviously positive, requiring some form of collectively funded enforcement apparatus. But I maintain no distinction all the way down to supposedly passive rights such as speech. Does it really take no movement by anyone or any government to maintain a freedom of speech? At least, it took someone writing it down and making it part of enforceable law. (The writing and the enforcing are paid for by taxpayers.) But enforceable rights require courts, again paid for by taxpayers. With no positive contribution to establish this machinery, you have words and nothing else. Libertarianism in a nutshell.

Nonsense. Everyone recognizes that action is NOT morally equivalent inaction. This is deeply established in our entire legal structure. You cannot be prosecuted for murder if you refrain from jumping into a river to save a drowning child, UNLESS you have under taken some legal obligaiton to do so, such as signing up to be a lifeguard. On occasion, we require bystanders to assist, but we don’t treat failures to save as equivalent to actions that harm.

There’s another distinction. A requirement to perofrm a specific act constrains your choices in a way that a prohibition on a specific act does not. A prohibition leaves you free to perform an infinite number of other activities with the same time and resources, while a requirement to act constrains you to only ONE action. Positive rights are hence far more restrictive of other people’s liberty than negative ones.

Please, tony- please give me one example of a situation in which socialism has outperformed capitalism, even in terms of making life better for poor people. I challenge you to come up with even one.

I will preempt your citation of the Nordic countries. Those countries got rich due to an embrace of capitalistic virtues, and, once rich enough, they decided to move toward the mixed economy/socialism lite they’re known for. Well, now they’re moving back toward capitalism as they recognize that what they had been doing isn’t sustainable.

Here are some counter examples for you:

North vs. South Korea East vs. West Germany The United States vs. the USSR. Plymouth from 1620-22 vs. 1622 and on.

Socialism only works when there are non-monetary interests that motivate people in their interactions with others, and this, almost by definition, can only happen at a very small scale. We usually call it the family, but it can sometimes extend to slightly larger groups. Anything bigger than a group slightly larger than the family, and it breaks down.

I have never endorsed authoritarian socialist regimes or authoritarianism of any stripe. I am not for abolishing capitalism. I’m for a mixed economy that maximizes the values of both capitalism and government intervention. I am for this because of what the evidence shows. If the evidence someday showed that a laissez-faire approached maximized human well-being, I’d be for it.

Which balance maximizes the standard of living for people is the standard. You believe this too. Everyone who is not a psychopath believes his political order maximizes human well-being. You just define that in terms of society adhering to strict principles, ignoring any and all physical measures, such as how many people die or starve. Not just religion, but old-school religion.

We do not approach this in different ways, our values are simply different. I think society protecting people from starving is more important than society protecting a billionaire from a dime in taxes. You believe the opposite, for some unfathomable reason.

In a way it’s terrible to watch the back-and-forth on these comments. Ultimately it’s like a conversation between people who use the same words, but speak different languages where words and concepts have different meanings.

Take the example of “human well-being”. Tony, you assume this is a thing that everyone can agree on in broad terms. To you this concept is obviously easy to determine across all of humanity, or at least sub-sets of humanity. And that it can be actively planned for.

Most other people in this thread think that “human well-being” can only apply to the individual, and that no-one can generalize it across millions of people. They think that only the individual can decide what their own well-being means. Which means that any centralized planning for “human well-being” will eventually interfere with the actual perceived well-being of those being planned for.

No social order will account for the needs and wants of all individual people. But we can reinsert our brains for a moment and describe, with very little effort, needs that are more or less universal. For some incredibly unfathomable reason libertarians think the right to own property is the one exception to their “derr what do we know, it’s all up to individuals!” mantra. But also, people don’t tend to like to go without sanitation and plumbing, transport, healthcare, education, air traffic control, and a hundred other things that we have discovered are best handled collectively. If we were an alien species perhaps our needs would be vastly different, though I doubt it. As humans we can be confident that leaving access to water up to the whims of Darwinian selection is perhaps not the best we can do.

Yes,a kingdom. Such bullshit. Libertarianism is the evil plot to take over the world, and then leave everybody the hell alone. Whether you are a sock puppet, or a Machiavellian genius, you provide a service: Forcing us to articulate where you are wrong, and giving lurkers a grasp on our philosophy. Take care, you statist SOB.

What you have then, isn’t a right to an apple. It’s a right to some share of something to be determined later by a committee of other people. Which means your rights rae dependent on the whims of the people on that committee. And moreover, that the people on that committee are no long your equals, since they how have the power to determine what your rights are.

Until the farmer, seeing his apples confiscated, decides, “why the fuck should I bust my ass and only get 1/2 an apple, when the dick down the street does nothing but gets 1/2 none the less. Fuck this shit. I’m outta here. ”

Thanks Tony. You got bubkus apples now. Good system you got there.

Try dividing 0 apples by three. See how many starving people get apples.

Yeah, I noticed the “libertarians cannot compromise” fallacy too. Does Dr. Wolfe not know there are different shades of “libertarian”? Minarchists and an-caps compromise all the time…errh, often. I mean

The thing about Ayn Rand is she touted individualism, but she did it on THEIR territory, so her arguments contained the skeletal structure of Statism. You can’t argue with Statists on their ground. You automatically give into their paradigms in so doing.

Reason writer Robby right here at Hit and Run claimed #gamergate, the hashtag, made a time machine went back in time before it even existed and in March of 2014 made a bomb threat against Anita Sarkeesian.

Wolfe is following the Transitive Law of Liberalism: He hates Stalin, and he hates libertarianism (and especially Rand Paul, who has the potential of blocking Queen Hilly from her throne), so they’re basically the same thing.

“a secular substitute for religion, complete with its own conception of the city of God, a utopia of pure laissez-faire and the city of man,

“See? Didn’t I warn you before hand? I didn’t lie!”

a place where envy and short-sightedness hinder creative geniuses from carrying out their visions.”

“These libertarians are too shortsighted to see what magnificent plants we the smart ones have for everyone! Lousy bastards!”

What does anything he said have to do with Stalinism is beyond me. I would say with his last paragraph he was LAMENTING that libertarians were too stubborn to let the great and wise Stalin types get on with their spectacular and stupendous 5-year social engineering programs.

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Sharply reducing the role of government in American life, libertarianism’s primary objective, appeals to conservatives because it offers an end to Obamacare, Social Security and other programs that transfer public money to the less well-off. Yet it also attracts liberal voters who ardently oppose invasions of privacy and bloated defense spending.

And, well, we can’t have all that, of course!

The good news is that if Paul were to win the Republican nomination, libertarianism’s unfitness for the modern world would be revealed for all to see. The bad news is that the poison of its extremism would enter into the body politic, perhaps never to be fully ejected.

Of course, the intellectual who uttered those words does not pause to think exactly how any of that can be proven. He simply begs the question by assuming the goodness of all those things he believes are at risk IF a libertarian were to win the presidential chair to then conclude libertarianism is an ancient evil.

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Ayn Rand may have hated libertarians but the reason she is important is because libertarians today hold beliefs that resemble hers more than any of the less radical and stupid actual philosophers of libertarianism. The idea that a social safety net is impermissible would be foreign to nearly all of them. The contempt for human beings for how they behave, which informs your beliefs about such programs, is pure Rand. And it is religious and radical and totalitarian. You wouldn’t know this, but you don’t believe in the value of evidence, and you wouldn’t know it because you don’t believe in the value of evidence. It’s not really optional. When laissez-faire policies lead to monopolies and widespread misery, and when government intervention improves people’s lives on massive scales, then you have to take that into account and not be a baby. A comparison to Stalin is stupid, but you guys do it to liberals all the time, because both philosophies by some amazing coincidence believe in government doing stuff; this is quite unlike you, who believe in government doing stuff, only no amount of democratic will or practical reality should allow government to do other stuff. It doesn’t matter that you wouldn’t necessarily put one dictator in charge of enforcing this regime against even unanimous popular sentiment; you don’t seem to feel the need to explain how your regime would work at all.

Tony|6.17.15 @ 6:56PM|# “[…]The idea that a social safety net is impermissible would be foreign to nearly all of them. The contempt for human beings for how they behave, which informs your beliefs about such programs, is pure Rand.[…]”

The pathetic moral cripple checks in with the normal load of lies and bullshit.

1. Libertarians don’t believe in a social safety net. 2. Libertarians have contempt for other human beings. 3. Libertarianism is totalitarian. 4. Libertarians don’t believe in the value of evidence. 5. Laissez-faire policies lead to monopolies. 6. You don’t seem to feel the need to explain how your regime would work at all.

Tony, you’ve really outdone yourself. When all you have left to defend yourself with are lies, your side has lost the war.

Buck up little cowboy, when the nation becomes libertarian due to the implosion of the current establishment policies, libertarians will still leave you alone.

“Buck up little cowboy, when the nation becomes libertarian due to the implosion of the current establishment policies, libertarians will still leave you alone.”

And this is what bothers Tony and others of his ilk the most. He knows the productive don’t need him, but he needs them. And furthermore, Tony knows most libertarians would help him and the other less fortunate out voluntarily, and he just can’t abide that. He needs to have their wealth extracted by force and then lecture them contemptuously from his lofty perch of moral superiority.

It’s not really optional. When laissez-faire policies lead to monopolies and widespread misery, and when government intervention improves people’s lives on massive scales, then you have to take that into account and not be a baby.

When laissez-faire policies lead to monopolies and widespread misery, and when government intervention improves people’s lives on massive scales, then you have to take that into account and not be a baby.

I don’t think there’s any real evidence that laissez-faire policies lead to monopolies. Historically most monopolies have need established and enforced by the government. Lots of people were arguing not long ago that Microsoft was a natural monopoly. The Apple came along. Now we have Android as a majority operating system on Smart Phones and Tablets and Windows tablets and phones are a small minority. The economy is far too dynamic for any monopoly to survive for long.

In my ideal world, the poorest people in society would be utterly free to employ themselves in any manner they saw fit. There would be no occupational licensing, no restrictions on selling food grown in your back yard, no laws against building a house on your own land in any manner you chose. What leads to misery of the poorest is that we have laws that prevent them from doing for themselves. They can’t open a shop in their own house due to zoning. They can’t sell vegetables grown in their yard due to food safety regulations. They can’t braid hair without getting a cosmetology degree. We forcibly make them dependent on welfare and minimum wage jobs instead of encouraging them to help themselves.

Ayn Rand did not like libertarians either, for exactly the same reason Wolfe gives. Granted, these with were 1960’s Libertarians (hippies of the right) that she disliked, not 2015 libertarians, but I’m still not sure what the old fart is up to with that.

Rand promoted libertarian politics only to the extent that it was derived from reason. She did not like libertarians who thought liberty was a first principle. In fact, she thought they’d be the first to fold under fire.

She accepted the State as the sole administer of justice, warts and all, and did not want gangs of anarchists making up their own rules as they go along.

Possibly but then she showed a complete mistrust of her own philosophy. If people are all self-interested, they would realize the greatest utility is achieved by trading peacefully. Gangs of anarchists (actually, thugs) would not be populated by self-interested men of reason but unthinking savages, the very reason why guns were invented. If she had shown more trust for the ultimate consequence of her own philosophy, she would realize that the State IS a creature populated by unthinking savages who make the rules as they go along.

To lefty ignoramuses it does; commie-kid bailed on his mortgage and is proud of it! He feels that the bank got stuck with the loss, since he’s a lefty imbecile. I hope his retirement portfolio took a hit.

Medicine is a science and as such has improved with time by the means of science (which is of course strictly regulated by internal checks and principles). Regulation, whether from government or nongovernmental bodies, maintains high standards. Licensing of physicians provides a measure of confidence for patients, and ensuring that practicing physicians are well-trained (evidenced by such credentials) means they are granted latitude when implementing their expertise. The regulations allow us to trust their judgment. A laissez-faire approach at the front end would (or at least might) result in saturation by charlatans, and god knows people are prone to victimizing themselves at the hands of charlatans, even with a modern highly standardized medical establishment.

That’s why sometimes regulation is good, and you probably agree except when it comes to a sovereign government doing it. Nobody is forced to be a doctor! Of course nobody is technically forced to be a citizen of a particular jurisdiction.

Don’t bother. Tony does not come here to learn. He chooses what he allows himself to be taught based upon the politics of the teacher. If the teacher is a fellow leftist who is incapable of rational thought and bases everything on what they feel, then Tony is ready to learn. This is because Tony is immune to both logic and reason. All he can do is feel. If it feels true then it is true. Period. So any rational argument will be lost on him. You can’t reason someone out of a position they arrived at by emotion. And emotion is all Tony knows.

Licensing of physicians provides a measure of confidence for patients, and ensuring that practicing physicians are well-trained (evidenced by such credentials) means they are granted latitude when implementing their expertise.

It was also used to whiten up the medical profession and make sure doctors came from the right family background.

A laissez-faire approach at the front end would (or at least might) result in saturation by charlatans, and god knows people are prone to victimizing themselves at the hands of charlatans, even with a modern highly standardized medical establishment.

You’d better get rid of your TV, VCR, DVD, and computer — these are all “regulated” by the private entity Underwriters’ Laboratories.

Why? Because, as the disease modifying medications (cures) have spent 25 years in FDA limbo, waiting for government approval. Do you know how many fellow MS sufferers I comforted as a MS Society volunteer as their MS progressed? Do you know how many PWMS are now permanently crippled or dead because the drugs that were invented in 1975 weren’t available to the MS suffers because of a regulatory black hole? The answer is hundreds of thousands, you statist fuckhead pig.

Do you have any idea how repugnant your comment is? How stupid? How insensitive?

You and your statist friends at the FDA have ruined the lives of millions of people.

I can’t speak with authority to whether the FDA has maliciously stalled promising MS therapies. Maybe it’s true. If the FDA is stalling scientifically established effective therapies for whatever nefarious reason, I have no problem admitting that that is bad. I also have no problem having an agency whose mission is to prevent poison from entering the medicines market. I’m not for any and all government, but good government. When you have freed yourself of childish slogans and notions of black and white, government vs. goodness, then you can think about how to constitute good government. It’s always going to be there; death and taxes as they say. You gonna avoid talking about how to manage death by pretending it can be dispensed with too?

“sometimes regulation is good, and you probably agree except when it comes to a sovereign government doing it. ”

You’re starting to catch on!

“The regulations allow us to trust their judgment”

No – by your own logic in this very post it is the *licensing*, not the *regulations* that “allow” us to trust their judgment. The doctors don’t need to be forced to get licenses/certifications from the AMA in order for those licenses/certifications to carry authority.

“Nobody is forced to be a doctor!”

No, but the rest of us are forced to *only* use doctors licensed by the AMA. The piece you’re missing in your libertarian-hypotheticals is that a libertarian would argue that we should have the right to seek medical care from whomever we choose at whatever price we agree to.

If I want advice from Rainbow the All Natural Healer down the street because she seems to be able to help people sometimes and she hardly charges anything, I should be allowed to.

Your argument is that I should be forced to pay money I don’t have (or someone else’s money) to get health care from someone I can’t afford for reasons I don’t agree with.

Again, to break it down – because you *are* getting there – it is not the regulations or the licenses libertarians have a problem with. It is the use of *force* in their application.

Tony has high standards that everyone else should be forced to to both follow and pay for. Not only that, but he feels that this expensive care is a basic human right that is to be paid for by taxes. And this is good and just because government has the power to use violence on anyone who disagrees. Do you disagree? Well then he’s disappointed that he can’t send the Thought Police out to kill you. Though he hopes that someday he will.

I actually can’t decide whether Tony is a paid shill or a sort of bi-curious libertarian who just can’t let go of his liberal programming. He’s here an awful lot for someone who just sees no value in libertarian ideas, so he’s either being paid to come here and try to refute us, or he’s attracted to the ideas but has some hang-ups.

I can easily believe either one, as his absolute refusal to see reason on party-line issues does scream “I’m paid to have these opinions,” but I find the latter scenario more intriguing, so I indulge it.

He’s a leftist dunce who actually feels that he is scoring points against stupid libertarians. Seriously. He really feels that he wins every argument. He’s that stupid. (notice I use the verb to feel, not to think. I would never accuse him of thinking)

It is not rare that I agree with the actual article more than the commenters. I think libertarians are ridiculous, and am an avowed liberal/progressive/democratic socialist. But part of that involves advocating for personal liberties that are threatened by current law. Really the only significant way I differ is in advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy. And this just happens to be the SINGLE GREATEST HITLER EVIL according to you guys. But you’re not tools at all.

If I want advice from Rainbow the All Natural Healer down the street because she seems to be able to help people sometimes and she hardly charges anything, I should be allowed to.

Who is disallowing this? No law is preventing you from getting therapy from your local yogi. Some of us however like having a formal system in place to put a floor (a high one) on how unscientific and predatory practitioners of medicine can be. Call us crazy.

it is not the regulations or the licenses libertarians have a problem with. It is the use of *force* in their application.

Get over it. Force, especially as thinly and metaphorically defined as libertarians make it, is part of life. A red light at an intersection is force. A request by your sister to be a bridesmaid is force. You people are the worst teenagers. That is really all that is going on here.

“You people are the worst teenagers . . .”. Because that is what Team Rachel Maddow told you, right?

Somehow you just cannot grasp the desire to be “left alone” is mutual, respectful and humble. It is beyond your comprehension. You only respond to your “better angels” when government force makes you be good. You cannot fathom that others do not require force to do the right thing.

The issue is that libertarians suggest that everyone can and will fall in line. I don’t need government to protect others from me, because I’m a decent person. I need it to protect me from those who aren’t.

“Force is part of life”. . . Only YOU would muddy the waters with a red light and bridesmaid.

And what you refuse to acknowledge – force (government force) is used to boost prior government force and coercion.

When government fails, you guys never admit it failed because it sucked. You say it failed because it wasn’t FORCEFUL enough. So you create even more force. Which, of course, fails again. RINSE. REPEAT. And the circle of government fucktitude continues – because you can’t grasp you created the problem in the first place.

Medicine is a science and as such has improved with time by the means of science (which is of course strictly regulated by internal checks and principles). Regulation, whether from government or nongovernmental bodies, maintains high standards. Licensing of physicians provides a measure of confidence for patients

Oh my god, that’s so funny. You didn’t write the dialog for Mars Attacks! did you?

Professor Donald Kessler: We know they’re extremely advanced technologically, which suggests – very rightfully so – that they’re peaceful. An advanced civilization, by definition, is not barbaric.

Ultimately, it’s the specter of Rand Paul, son of Ron (who “adhered to such radical positions as abolishing the Federal Reserve”!), that’s making Wolfe tear through his Depends like Stalin through his former revolutionary comrades in the late ’30s.

Ultimately, it’s the specter of Rand Paul, son of Ron (who “adhered to such radical positions as abolishing the Federal Reserve”!), that’s making Wolfe tear through his Depends like Stalin through his former revolutionary comrades in the late ’30s.

I love you, Nick Gillespie.

The link in the original quote sent me rambling down the Wikipedia rabbit-hole about Stalin’s showtrials, Kagonovich, Sid Reilly and the Trust, Nikolai Bukharin, and Vasili Blohkin (holy shit). Wasted basically whole workday.

Even in the absence of, say, a government-run Food and Drug Administration or medical-procedure board, there would be all sorts of certifying agencies, insurance companies, reputational proxies, grading services, and more to give consumers all sorts of information about the efficacy and safety of whatever you could dream up.

a place where envy and short-sightedness hinder creative geniuses from carrying out their visions.

Creative geniuses hindered by being allowed to follow their muse? Or are you talking mother fucker, about TOP MEN and their plans? In which case you better have the balls and ammo to back up that kind of talk.

He doesn’t have enemies, at least not of the principled ideological kind. Wolfe desires success and admiration as an intellectual; the positions he needs to take in order to achieve that are immaterial. Since his progressive friends are in a “beat up the libertarians” mood, that’s what he’s doing right now. If Marxism or fascism became popular again, he’d convert back to that.

Earlier in his career, Wolfe was a member of the collective that put out the Marxist-oriented journal, Kapitalistate, whose pages featured articles by such writers as Poulantzas, Claus Offe, Ralph Miliband, and Bob Jessop. By the early 1980s, Wolfe’s politics had become more centrist. In 2004, one author characterized him as a radical centrist thinker.

Hm. Late to the party here. The Stalinist comparison is funniest to me because he’s painting Stalinists as some sort of pure ideologues. Stalin didn’t butcher people because they weren’t true believers or Marxists. Stalin butchered people because he felt threatened by them. Stalin was the ultimate authoritarian statist. That’s it. He was no purist.

Wolfe didn’t want to use the word Marxist or communist because then he would have offended by the special snowflakes on the left who, despite all protests, are pretty sympathetic when they hear those two words. So he went with Stalin.

Senile dementia was my first thought, too. But then I figured this guy’s probably been inventing stuff to demonize everyone he disagrees with long before now.

I figure it’s bad parenting. When I was kid and I bad-mouthed someone, I remember my parents telling me, “If you have absolutely nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all.” I think Wolfe’s parents told young Paul, “If you have absolutely nothing bad to say about someone, just MAKE SOME SHIT UP.”

“My good sir, it’s what I can do for you. Don’t mind tellin’ ya, I have got a real hootenanny of an act I’m itchin’ to put out there. I’m sittin’ on a gold mine with yer name on it.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes indeedy. It’s a family act. First my daughter and I take the stage. She takes 10,000 troops and a tank division and invades France. I’m right behind her with fence and barbed wire, and me and a bunch of guards with machine guns herd a bunch of gays and foreigners into a small space. Then we put up the fence and barbed wire around them and – presto, a concentration camp. Next my son and a few thousand heavily armed thugs seize control of farmland and oil wells in southeast Asia, killing the natives in the process. He and his men live like kings from the oil money and from controlling the food supply while everyone else dies of starvation. Last, my wife comes on stage and sells a bunch of captured Africans to plantations in the American Southeast.”

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I am always amused when pundits try to attack libertarianism. Their arguments run so thin, it is so easy to see the prejudice and fear of loss of power and control that drives their opinions. It also reveals their statist and socialist mindsets.

I am reminded of my article The Libertarian Freeman Revolution, which predicted an orchestrated attempt to undermine and then eradicate libertarians from society, as McCarthy attempted to do with communists in the 1950s.

To me libertarianism is so benign, user friendly and non-offensive, it truly puzzles me when I see shit like this, Christie’s commentary was another. Libertarianism only asks that people have the right to be left alone. Anyone against that obviously does not want to leave you be, and has plans for you to work for their goals whether you want to or not. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they start attacking you, then they either join you or get left in the dustheap of failed ideologies.

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